


Time to Make it Right

by nightwalker



Category: Stormwatch (Comics), The Authority, WildStorm
Genre: Angst, Canon Gay Character, Canon Gay Relationship, Established Relationship, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-21
Updated: 2012-02-21
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:41:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/344168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightwalker/pseuds/nightwalker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The part that shamed him, the part that made his stomach turn, was that none of this was really about Midnighter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time to Make it Right

**Author's Note:**

> Set immediately after and containing spoilers for _Human on the Inside_. There were parts of that comic that never really sat right with me, mostly the idea that Apollo, upon finding out that someone kissed his husband would decide to knock Midnighter through a wall instead of, say, the guy who kissed him. Apollo comes across like someone's abusive boyfriend in this comic and it never seemed very in character for him.
> 
> Warnings: This story references an off-screen, one-time act of domestic violence.

Jenny was still asleep when he checked in on her, curled up in her crib with her favorite stuffed toy, her blanket tangled in her legs, one arm flung over her head, the other one curled up by her face. She still sucked her thumb sometimes – Apollo made terrible jokes about the previous Jenny and her oral fixation having been passed on to the new generation – but that night she wasn't. Just sleeping peacefully, her mouth slightly open as she breathed in soft, gentle breaths.

She was unbearably perfect and Midnighter gave in to the need to hold her. Slipped his hands under her and lifted her out of the crib in one smooth motion that he'd had months to perfect. She slept like a human child did – deeply and regularly and trustingly. She didn't wake at all as he lifted her into his arms.

He kissed her head, breathed in the scent of her as he settled in the window seat of her nursery to watch the Bleed pulse around them. He stoked a hand over her head and let her heartbeat wash over him, counting each tiny thump so he wouldn't have to think about anything else.

Like the fact that they'd saved the world hours ago, and Apollo still hadn't come home.

* * *

Angie hadn't bothered to dispose of what was left of the Danny Chan construct before coming planetside to join the fight which meant there was currently a scattering of dismembered body parts and internal circuitry across the floor, along with drying smears of blood-colored fuel and lubricants that looked remarkably authentic, even with Apollo's enhanced senses and experienced eye. 

"I'd have saved some for you," Angie said as she stepped over what had been part of Chan's torso, "but heat of the moment and all that." She stopped beside the bed that had been Jack's and stooped to pick up the blankets and pillow that had fallen to the floor when he left. "Anyway, I'm on Midnighter's side."

"There aren't any sides," Apollo said. He studied a smear of fluid on the wall, easily a dozen feet from where Angie had dismembered Chan. "You have to believe you were right to have a side. I don't-" he shrugged and it felt like giving up. "I never thought of myself as a jealous bastard before. Go figure."

"You've always been a jealous bastard," Angie said. She was stripping the sheets from Jack's bed to be washed, ignoring the fluid-soaked ruin of the bed beside it. "Trust me. From the outside it was really obvious. He just never gave you reason to act like it before."

Apollo paused beside a hunk of Chan's skull. The organic flesh was missing in chunks and the metal skull looked macabre with the eye socket exposed and wires flopping limply against the floor. He thought he could see a light still flickering somewhere under the hair, in the circuitry of the brain and he narrowed his eyes and melted it into slag without even a conscious thought.

Angie quirked an eyebrow at him, all gleaming silver, but refrained from comment.

"He didn't give me a reason this time, either," Apollo said as Chan's skull bubbled and slowly cooled on the Carrier floor. "I did this all by myself."

They worked in silence for long minutes, gathering bits of metal and skin and shoving them out the airlock without ceremony. Angie finally pried what was left of the melted skull off the floor and said, "I think you're being too hard on yourself."

Apollo watched the last few pieces of Chan spiral out the airlock toward the sun and allowed himself a small, grim, smile. "I think you're wrong."

She didn't roll her eyes at him, or if she did he didn't see her do it. "You're not making anything better by letting this fester." She stripped the last of the ruined sheets off what had been the construct's bed and dumped them on the floor. They could be washed, salvaged – Apollo was extremely good at getting blood out of almost anything – but neither one of them wanted any part of Chan left on the Carrier. Apollo incinerated them with a flick of a finger and all that was left was a small pile of fine ash. 

"Do you have any idea what I would have done if I'd stumbled across some superhuman bastard beating on his partner back in the day?" Apollo grit his teeth, fought back the surge of bile in his throat. "Hell. Yesterday. Do you know what I'd have done to him? I'd have made him wish he was dead and that's assuming I didn't just kill him."

"You weren't beating on anybody," Angie said. She held up a hand before he could say whatever he was going to say. "Don't get me wrong," she said. "You're an asshole. What you did was terrible. I'm not even going to pretend I'm in a position to judge, because I think if we gave Jack a choice between me hitting him and what I ended up doing, we both know which he'd choose."

"I can judge me enough for both of us," Apollo said. 

"Yeah," Angie said. "You probably could." She sighed and some of the silver slid away until she was looking at him with wide brown eyes, her face framed with wavy brown hair, the silver of the nanotech looking like a jumpsuit now instead of her skin. "How much good do you think that's doing either one of you?"

"I hit him," Apollo said and felt almost sick at the way the words felt on his tongue. "I love him more than anything, Angie, I told him he could tell me anything and the first time he tells me something I don't want to hear, I hit him. How do I make that right?"

"By never doing it again. By making sure he knows you won't. We both know he doesn't give a shit that you hit him. You pulled your punch, anyway, since his face wasn't smashed into a bloody pulp. Right now, he thinks you don't trust him, and that's what's going to kill you both if you don't stop feeling sorry for yourself and fix it." She smiled, a mocking, ugly twist of lips that was aimed at both of them equally. "And it's well past time I started taking my own advice."

* * *

If asked to put a date and a time to it, Apollo wasn't sure he could. He remembered the first time they'd kissed, the first time they'd fucked. He remembered the first time he'd looked at Midnighter and realized that he'd given himself to the other man and never wanted to be set free. But the love had slipped in when Apollo wasn't looking, settled into his skin and his blood without him noticing until loving Midnighter was more important than breathing, more essential than the sun. 

Maybe it was because it had taken him by surprise that he was never entirely certain he was able to make sure Midnighter knew how he felt. Words came so easily to Apollo, but he could never find words for this – this thing that lived inside his skin and lived and breathed and beat for Midnighter. There weren't words. And he tried to tell Midnighter, tried to communicate it with every kiss and touch, but he never felt like he made himself understood. He tried, a thousand ways; the word love whispered in the early morning when they were both still drifting; the wet slide of skin as they came together; marriage vows and the words 'I do', spoken aloud before witnesses for all the world to hear; the blood on his hands as he killed to make the world a better place for the family they'd made. And sometimes, most of the time, he thought it was enough. That even if he couldn't make Midnighter understand, at least he'd come close.

The part that shamed him, the part that made his stomach turn, was that none of this was really about Midnighter. 

Because any jealousy or anger Apollo might have felt all stemmed from this old fear that he didn't make his husband feel loved. 

He did remember the first time Midnighter said the words. After their world had come crashing down around them, after they'd run and found themselves hunted, living in the alleyways and the basements, the abandoned parts of the world. Apollo had known already that he was fallen but hadn't found the words yet, hadn't found the nerve yet. And it was Midnighter, who struggled with words and emotion and the simplest of human social interactions, who had been the braver of them. 

The old warehouse where they had bedded down had been long since abandoned by everything, even the rats. They'd spread out Midnighter's coat atop some broken down cardboard and Midnighter had pulled Apollo down, touched him with sure hands until Apollo was almost desperate and then spread his legs and urged Apollo inside. It had been fast and hard – it often was back then, mostly by necessity when they were still convinced that Bendix lurked in every shadow – but that had been just weeks after their team had been slaughtered, when they were still grieving and stunned and only beginning to adapt to the way their lives had changed and they had just needed each other.

And Apollo remembered the smells of dust and mold, the way the moonlight cutting through a broken window high above their heads had glinted off Midnighter's eyes, the way every rough snap of Apollo's hips forced a hard, sharp breath out of his partner. Not quite a groan, but like Apollo was filling him so completely there wasn't room for breath in his lungs. He wanted to kiss him, so he did, sealing their mouths shut, fucking Midnighter's mouth in time with his cock, swallowing those breaths and making them his own. He worked his arms under Midnighter's body, wrapped him up and hauled him in close until there wasn't any space between them, just Midnighter's hearts pounding against his chest and his cock, wet and throbbing between their bellies. Need was curled hot and heavy in his chest, almost desperate because he knew – not for the first time – that this wasn't enough, that nothing, not even a lifetime together, would ever be enough. He wanted to kiss the breath from Midnighter's lungs and replace it with his own, he wanted to be the sun Midnighter needed to live. He wanted to lie down with him and never have to part, and he wasn't going to get any of those things. 

But he had Midnighter's arms wrapped around him, holding him close, urging him deeper. He had the spill of heat between their bodies and the way Midnighter shuddered beneath him, spent and lax and vulnerable, something he would never be with anyone else. And he had the voice in his ear, deep, gravelly whispers that urged him to completion even as he fought to make it last.

Afterwards they should have cleaned up and dressed, prepared themselves for an attack or the need to run at a moment's notice. But instead he pressed his face against Midnighter's throat and breathed in the scent of leather and sweat and sex while their bodies cooled, still joined, and Midnighter's heartbeats slowed and evened. 

He wasn't expecting anything, except perhaps an admonishment to get off and get dressed. He was hoping that Midnighter would indulge him for a few minutes longer, if only until the need to clean up a little became more pressing. It looked like he would get his wish, because Midnighter's arms were still tight around him, one hand stroking his back, fingers tracing the ridges of his spine from the small of his back up to the base of his neck, the vulnerable place where it met the skull. Midnighter slid his hand into Apollo's hair and curled his fingers to cup his skull, hands that could rip a man's head off cradling Apollo like he was something breakable.

He swallowed, hard, and wanted the man all over again.

Midnighter's only moment of weakness was a shaky breath against the top of Apollo's head. "Thank god it wasn't you," he said, his voice low and rough in the emptiness of the night around them. "I think it every fucking day. I wouldn't trade you for any of them." His hands moved to grip Apollo's hips, hold him close as he started to grow hard again. "I love you so fucking much."

Apollo breathed him in and found his own courage there, in an empty warehouse in a nameless city. There was blood behind them and an uncertain future before them and this, right here, this was more than enough. "I love you, too."

* * *

Midnighter wasn't in their room when Apollo got back, but he stamped down the surge of fear and made himself walk calmly to their daughter's room. If he stretched out his hearing, he could make out her soft breaths and there, beside her, Midnighter's deeper ones, the steady, familiar double-beat of his hearts. Midnighter knew he was there – had probably sensed him before Apollo even opened the door, but he wasn't coming out to him. 

There was no reason he should. It was Apollo's turn to be the brave one. 

His husband was sitting in one of the window ledges, still in costume, Jenny cuddled against his chest. The sight of them made Apollo's throat hurt, made him have to breathe around the tightness because they were everything perfect in his life and he couldn't mess this up.

Apollo crossed the room quietly, trying not to wake Jenny, even though he knew she could sleep through almost anything – and had, for that matter. Midnighter watched his approach with wary eyes and a blank expression, but when Apollo knelt beside him and reached out a hand to touch his cheek, Midnighter didn't pull away. 

He didn't know what to say, so he started with the truth. "I said something to you, earlier today, while you were asleep, that I should have said to you while you were awake."

Midnighter nodded, short and sharp. "What was it?"

"That I love you." He curled his fingers, brushed the back of his hand over the curve of Midnighter's jaw, where the bruise had already long since healed. "I love you so much." He shook his head when Midnighter made to speak. "I don't know how to tell you that everything is yours. Whatever you need. Everything I am. I don't know how to tell you that."

Midnighter sighed. "I don't suppose it's occurred to you that you did just tell me that."

"It's not enough," Apollo said. "It's not anything like enough. I'm sorry."

Midnighter shook his head once, but the wariness was fading from his eyes and that was enough of a start to give Apollo hope. "It's enough for me, you idiot." He ducked his head to look at Jenny, then dragged his eyes back up to meet Apollo's. "You've always been enough." He sighed, heavy and tired. "Jack said that we were all feeling it. The death of the future. That it's why we fell apart so quickly."

The death of hope, Apollo thought, and it made a kind of sense. "Tell me I didn't destroy anything today," Apollo said. He wanted to close his eyes, he wanted to beg. 

"Don't be stupid." Midnighter turned his face, pressed his lips against Apollo's fingers and it felt like a benediction, like forgiveness. "Just banged it up a little. We both did."

"You didn't do anything wrong."

"Stop it," Midnighter said. "I'm not talking about Chan."

And maybe he was right. Maybe it took two people to get where they were right then. Two people misunderstanding each other and maybe, just a little, starting to take each other for granted. Apollo exhaled slowly, leaned forward to rest his head against Midnighter's shoulder. "I might have melted him into slag before throwing him out the airlock."

Midnighter's laugh was a soft puff of air against the top of his head. "See? Shit like that is why I love you so much."

Apollo raised his eyes to meet his husband's. "Put Jenny down and come to bed?" 

He didn't have a game plan for this, some half formed idea of gentle make-up sex to soothe the rough edges. But the door was barely closed behind them before Midnighter shoved him toward the bed and growled, "Strip," before following through on his own order, shedding his coat and mask, kicking his boots halfway across the room.

Apollo peeled off his costume with the ease of long practice, his eyes on Midnighter as he shed his leathers, revealing skin Apollo knew by sight and touch and taste. He was hard already, his cock pushing against the confines of black boxer-briefs and when Midnighter went to push them down Apollo pushed his hands away and did it for him. Dropped to his knees in front of his husband and took the heat of him in his mouth, one long swallow that made Midnighter curse and grab at his hair.

They'd done almost everything to each other over the years and Apollo'd loved every second of it, but there was something to be said for this. For the way Midnighter tasted, the smell of him. The way his thighs flexed under Apollo's hands as he fought the urge to just give in and fuck Apollo's mouth. The vulnerability any man displayed when he let someone do this to him. Apollo knew exactly what it meant for Midnighter, of all men, to let himself be vulnerable. Even here, even with Apollo.

He hollowed his cheeks and sucked, swallowed Midnighter until his nose was pressed against his husband's skin, his cock heavy and hot on Apollo's tongue. He suckled, tongue and teeth and suction while Midnighter's breath grew shorter and deeper above him. He stroked his hands over Midnighter's thighs, not holding him, because Midnighter had the self-control not to thrust. And if he lost it, Apollo could take it, wanted to take it, wanted to take anything Midnighter had to give him.

He pulled back when he felt Mid get close, let his cock slip from his lips, rubbed his cheek against it, slick with spit and precum while Midnighter groaned. "Bed," Apollo said and he stood, pulling Midnighter against him as they tumbled down to the sheets. Apollo shook as Midnighter ground their bodies together and he dug his fingers into Midnighter's back, holding him there. "Please," he said and he hooked a leg around Midnighter's waist.

Calloused fingers slid inside of him, already slick. Apollo laughed and Midnighter grinned down at him, a little smug before kissing him, slow and wet. His fingers stroked Apollo from the inside until he was writhing. Only when Apollo was gasping and desperate did Midnighter take him by the hips and press inside.

He came embarrassingly fast considering Midnighter had barely touched him, but he couldn't quite bring himself to care, not when Midnighter was looking at him like that, open and affectionate and tender. He tightened his leg around Midnighter's waist, and pulled his head down into a kiss as Midnighter fucked him with short, shallow thrusts, unable to get a good angle, or unwilling to pull away enough to find one. Apollo didn't care, just lifted his hips into every push, aftershocks rolling through his body, making him feel raw and breathless.

Big hands stroked his sides as Midnighter sought his own release. Apollo stretched lazily, tried to open himself more, tried to bring Midnighter in deeper. He wanted to stay like this, but he wanted to hold Midnighter while he came even more. 

Midnighter kissed him again, deep and wanting. Jenny Sparks had seen them kissing once, laughingly and half-seriously threatened to seduce Midnighter from him. For a man who claimed he didn't know how to be human anymore, he was better at this than Apollo. 

Midnighter shoved into him, hard, desperate and Apollo held him there, clutched his hips as Midnighter came inside him with a rush of wet heat that made Apollo groan against his husband's mouth. His fingernails dug into Midnighter's hips as Mid stilled and slumped against him. Another kiss, slower this time as Midnighter caught his breath, and Apollo counted several long moments before sure hands stroked him soothingly as Midnighter pulled out and settled beside him on the bed.

Apollo rolled with him, cuddled Midnighter's head against his shoulder while their sweat dried and thin cooling trickles of semen escaped from his body. "I love you so fucking much," he said against short red hair, intentionally echoing Midnighter's words from years before. "I'm sorry. Forgive me."

"I love you too," Midnighter said, one arm draped around Apollo's waist in a deceptively loose hold. Apollo knew he wasn't getting free unless Midnighter decided to let go. "I'm sorry too. And I already have." He kissed Apollo's throat. "Go to sleep. It's late. Jenny will be up in a few hours. And there's a plenty of time for us to get this right."


End file.
